Tips & Training

That’s a good question and I’m sure you could get a lot of different advice on that one! Personally, in a race I would practice what you use to pace/monitor yourself in training, whatever is the best gauge for you of the effort you want to achieve for your racing goals. That could be heart rate, power (if you use watts but most people aren’t this fancy when not on their trainer and out on the road), cadence, speed, or even breathing and the general feeling in your legs if you feel know yourself well enough. If you use cadence in your training and know what is normal for you - I think most people naturally pedal between 80-100 rpm - it can be a good thing to check in with in a race too. You don’t want to be pedaling so slow that you’re “mashing” or powering down so much that your legs fatigue too fast, or spinning so fast that your legs are just turning over out of control with no power and getting your heart rate up too high at the same time. In a road triathlon, following cadence can be a great way to keep you in the moment, focused and on pace. However, it is important to have a good balance between what you could call internal feedback like all of the above, and external feedback like wind, temperature, and changes in terrain up and down.

Sleep is really important especially with the training volume that I maintain. I try for 9 hours and a 1 hour to 2 hr nap (on the super awesome days!)

I would recommend:

A) take the bike to a local bike store for a safety check and tune up. At the minimum, the store should check the tire pressure, brakes, chainring, and derailleur/shifters to ensure all are are in proper working order and all connections are snug.
B) I would start riding maybe once or twice a week for 20min at a time.  Choose an environment that is flat and safe (bike trail or bike lane.)
C) As you progress, you can start riding more times per week, and at a greater duration, but do not increase volume by more than 15% per week.
D) Consider joining a group - Like your local Luna Chix!   - to make riding more enjoyable, and to enjoy the company of other women cyclists

Now that being said - if I was coaching a beginning cyclist - I would ask a lot more questions about the individual’s specifics- a lot may also depend on the person’s fitness and what other activities they do and their health in general.

Hope this helps,
~Bevin Keen
(USA Cycling, Level 1 Coach)

I would start by looking up the results from last year for the race you are doing.  Go into your age group and look at the times of the person that finished in the middle.  That will give you a good indication!

You can also look at the age group results of similar distance races in your area, keeping in mind that swim courses are often not an accurate distance and that every bike and run course has different elevation profiles.

I looked up an all-women’s sprint race on a fairly flat course, and here is the average times of the middle of the pack finishers:
Overall time:  1:52 (including transition times)
Swim:  22 minutes
Bike:  47 minutes
Run:  33 minutes

Another thing you can do is time yourself for each leg of the triathlon, each sport, and knowing that you’ll be a little faster on race day check out where you would land in the results!

And one of my teammates suggested that if you’re is interested in finding out how she might compare to someone you know, you can check out Athlinks. It aggregates times for people and is a good resource when researching your competition.